Ardelon

Here is a pic of the (non)theme.

Admirable entries and worthy winners - congratulations!

[beautiful detail and accuracy - down to the waving flag behind the grille!

Cool MOCs! I especially like the way the roof of the first one bends down in the middle.

Real shame... But I guess we were bracing ourselves for it because of the Joust set. Do you have any info on a replacement theme?

Same here.

There is an opinion that T-Rex had feathers. Taking the threat less seriously would be inadvisable for any dino hunter. They could have given the raptors some feathery crests and tails at least - LEGO should try to educate the kids though play, instead of perpetuating outdated ideas (give us Vikings without horned helmets!) - though I admit some license is necessary as we dont know even what color the dinos were. Shame the clips are part of the gun, I hoped they would be separate, as in the the ones from Brickarms.

Nice review, Captain BeerBeard, the ship looks a lot better close up than it seemed in the previous images.

I think he's wearing shorts - you can see a yellow stripe on his leg. The bagpiper, swimmer and dardevil look just like I imagined they should look in minifg form! The hippie as well, though a peace sign and pink/orange lens in his glasses would have helped. Though like this his face is more versatile. Hopefully there will be a hippie girl somewhere along the line. My one nitpick is that the eagle warrior headdress should look more organic, as the Aztecs didn't have metal helmets.

These are points I consides important: - The most important thing for me is that reintrodued factions should have the same crest as the original, otherwise I couldn't consider them the same faction. The new falcon shield doesn't make the cut, for instance, that's why I hope the new falcons don't become a new faction - they would have to have the original falcon shields. I would refer to original forestmen and dark forest, whio have the same crests, to show whay I mean. - They should stick to the orginal color scheme, though i wouldnt mind (not that I would have a choice) new colors that repaced old ones, like if Wolfpack had the red-brown and/or dark brown color instead of the old brown, or bley stonework instead of gray. - New elements, like the new great helm, weapons, plants/animals and architectural pieces can be incorporated. - Torsos can be a bit different, like the bull knight keychain – but keep in mind that the wolfpack crest is the same is the same as the original!(incidentally, does anyone know if the torso on this "minifig" can be separated?) - I presume the faces would be different, at least with the sparkle in the eyes, and I'm ok with that (though unique character figures, like Majisto, the Royal Knights King, Basil the Batlord and Willa should be as faithful to the original, if reintroduced). I hope the idea of reintroducing old themes/factions works out, I see plenty of advantages they would bring: - possibly less time and money invested by TLG for development - kids would buy enjoy them the same as we did and wouldn't care that they were remakes of older themes - or, if their parents or oler relations had the old set, they would be able to expand their armies without buying a busload of sets - a good motivation for their parents, too - AFOLs would be more motivated to buy them out of nostalgia - maybe it would even draw some new AFOLs out of their dark ages! And I dont really see any disadvantages - those who say that it would ruin the uniqueness of the originals, or that the sets wouldn't be as good as the originals, are welcome to spend their money elsewhere.

Whoa, I barely make the eligibility cut! Anyway: entry 2: 1p entry 4: 3p entry 10: 1p

Seeing as the main draw of these sets would be the minifigs, and as we already have the these minifigs in the CMF line, I don't see this idea happening for some years to come, maybe until a new generation of kids grows up. The almost decade-long gap between the studios line and the CMF ine might be a reference.

If TLG did introduce a falcon faction, the awesomeness of this first one would still be preserved for a few months, as long as we didnt know whether there actually would be a followup faction. So TLG would cash in on those buying the set ofr the uniqueness factor of the falcon knight at first, and follow up with a full-fledged faction later. It might seem a bit unsporting, but it would make sense from a business POV. Maybe any following falcon faction isnt fully fleshed out yet, so TLG went with the dragon torso for this set. I don't know whether there is any precedent for this, though. My points are just for the sake of argument, though. I would prefer the black falcon to be a one-off, as I don't like that his shield doesn't match the orginal falcon shields, so I would have a hard time with the (in)compatibility of new and old falcons.

Maybe the yellow triangle is his "skin", and the blue is only supposed to be a mask+hood that covers the eyes and crown but not the forehead?

I seem to be in a minority on this issue, but I dont think the dragon knights need a castle - they have their fortress as a base. It does seem inadequate compared to the lions' castle, but that's what sets the dragons apart and makes them a unique faction - they aren't a standard castle-based faction with a royal family. A castle would seem unnecessary since the dragons already have a big base set. But I wouldn't say no to such a set though .

Your MOCs keep getting better and better, slovakiasteph! I like the furniture as well, especially the couches. And everyone has a flatscreen TV !

I guess I have a more long-term perspective, then. I simply think that the ability to add new sets to old ones and their mutual compatibility is one of the strongest points of LEGO. To me, these new larger cars are like fleshies - they both might interact fine with their current themes, but look just garish and out of place compared to either previous town sets or other minifigs, respectively.

I'd prefer the vehicles to be scaled in comparison with the LEGO structures they're supposed to interact with, not in comparison to real life.

I think that ancient subtheme could work like the Ninja theme of 1998 - stick around for just a year or two, so traditional Castle subthemes don't get too stale or repetitive. A Middle/Far Eastern subtheme set in a fictional universe (meaning no "European" cultures around, so no clash of civilizations) could work like this as well.

@ Elander: I’d be very surpised if TLG releases real-life factions like Romans vs Barbarians, Greeks vs Persians, Union vs Confederacy, etc. Any faction presented as the "bad guy" would risk fuelling strong negative reactions among the descendants of the factions’ real-life analogues. Remember the Iranian reaction to the film "300"? And the Muslim world is pissed of at Denmark as it is, what with the caricatures of Mohammed. Romans vs Barbarians might risk offending either the Romance or the Germanic peoples of Europe. The same goes for American colonists vs Redcoats - the film "Patriot" wasn’t recieved too well in the UK. Even the Confederacy of the US Civil War, seen by outsiders as a nation of racists and slavedrivers, isn’t seen that way by the US Southerners of today, and TLG would risk losing a big chunk of the US market if they went ahead with this theme. I guess I’m being too politically correct, I’d love to see any of the aforementioned ideas made in LEGO, but this is the world we live in. I hope TLG will keep Castle limitied to "Castle" and develop parallel themes for ancient and western settings. Otherwise, TLG could just lump Castle, Pirates, and anything else into a general "history" theme, which would be a step backwards, to put it mildly. Maybe an "ancient" theme might make the cut, as it would be too similar to Castle (armored guys with cold weapons fighting among themselves and with fantasy creatures) and would compete with it, but the more modern themes should be left out. Having said that, a Wild West theme would be welcome; maybe TLG could alternate it with Pirates, since they don’t have the will to make Pirates into a core theme. As to whether history is seen as too uncool, I think it just suffers from a lack of hot-rod-monster-trucks, superheroes, evil masterminds, monsters, and mega subs/aircraft to be appealing to the average KFOL.

@ Aanchir: Points taken.

To me, it seems this set has all the faults of Leo’s castle (juniorization, open back, green 1st floor, lack of mechanism for the gate and drawbrige) and none of its strengths (unique minifigs, swivelling "window" in tower, cloth with Leo’s coat of arms). Apart from a few other faults of its own (mainly stickers), it does have some redeeming qualities in the smithy and the dungeon. I find it inferior to Leo’s castle, and I think the whole KK1 subtheme is underrated because of complaints of juniorization. I was surprised and sorry to see it last only 1 year, I thought the Bulls could use more fleshing out. This castle on the other hand, I see among the poorest TLG has produced (and I consider myself generous towards castles, as you may have gleaned from my defense of KK1).

Early 19th century, i.e. still in the spirit of the 18th century in uniform style (except the shakos, which were new, alongside some cavalry elements), weaponry and tactics. The Napoleonic wars had more in common with the wars of the mid to late 1700s (our pirate era) than those of the mid to late 1800s (our Grenadier guard era).

Well, there’s this piece to fit 2 figs in a 4-wider; <insert that tiresome argument> as it may be, I think it works very well. Variety is fine, but when small cars look like bumper cars next to the trucks, it strains my suspension of disbelief. 7642 shows this neatly even within one set, with the blue pickup and the orange truck. A major gripe for me isn’t necessarily just the width, but the height, with the bumpers and grilles being 4-5 bricks high, as seen on the red and orange trucks. It seems the cabin of the orange truck is higher than the pickup is long, and it contributes to the gargantuan appaerance of the new super trucks. My point is, the new large vehicles do not fit the City layout (buildings (not counting modulars), aircraft and large ships). But, as you said, it’s a matter of opinion and ones requirement as a MOCer. There is a slight connection in that 2005 was the year the vehicles started growing, at least from what I could discern from brickset.com.

I myself dislike the big vehicles of post-2005 City. I don’t buy the reasoning that the scale of cars to minifigs is more authentic, as now the vehicles positively dwarf the surrounding buildings. Why not make the buildings in a more realistic scale too? Becaue it would take a ridiculous amount of time and bricks and space and, ultimately, money. So, they should have kept the vehicles at roughly LEGO Town scale. In this review of set 6394 by Rapseflaps, he shows how out of scale the new cars look (scroll down to the last part of the review). Now, Six-wide cars I can live with (to an extent, the bus from 7641 City Corner is simply a behemoth). But the vehicles just seem to grow taller and wider. It seems LEGO City is entering its SUV era, in contrast to the real world where smaller and more economical cars are the trend. Seems like LEGO City doesn’t have problems with rising gas prices. The oversized construction sets don’t actually bug me that much, as I (personally) see them as independent of LEGO City. But since 2005 is when this trend started, I consider it a disappointing year, and I voted accordingly. And yes, I consider this scaling issue to be a bigger problem than Town Jr. That’s not to say I don’t like the City theme. The minifigs are great and some sets are nice, and I noticed that it moved away a great deal from racing, a permanent and sometimes overpowering subtheme of LEGO Town. It seemed like the whole town was built around the racing business – I bet that’s why it had such a large police force, they needed to clamp down on the ubiquitous speeding and race fixing. Sorry for making this a scaling rant.